In the best of all worlds, K2 Commons, just like the original New England town commons, would be in the center of or on the edge of town, not a mile down the highway, setting up a competition for the civic life of the community.

But real life does not always comport neatly with plans and visions. The vacant K2 manufacturing plant represents a unique asset. Once a source of hundreds of jobs, manufacturing on the scale of K2 now occurs in Mexico, Vietnam or China due to the changing nature of the global and local economy. Thus, the K2 plant is an asset ripe for adaptive use, and reusing a vacant building is a “good” just as developing a healthy town is a “good.” Is there a way to connect these two “goods” so K2 Commons doesn’t suck the life out of Vashon town, and the community isn’t stuck with an abandoned building in an industrial zone? Possibly so, but first some background.

The K2 plant is an asset ripe for adaptive use, and reusing a vacant building is a “good” just as developing a healthy town is a “good.”

Traditionally, cities and towns have been the center of commercial and civic activity. Only in the past 60 or 70 years have the auto and highway enabled us to travel so freely and spread out our development over the countryside.

Once viewed as a panacea by visionaries as diverse as architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the imagineers at Walt Disney studios, what’s come to be known as suburban sprawl has some serious downsides. Washington state residents and their elected representatives recognized this in 1991 when they adopted the Growth Management Act to direct where new growth should occur. It calls on cities and counties to protect farm, timber and resource land, critical areas (such as salmon habitat) and to focus new growth in existing centers — urban centers and “rural activity centers” such as the town of Vashon.

The Puget Sound Regional Council’s Vision 2020 Plan concentrates future development in about 22 centers, harkening back to the development patterns over centuries of international and American cities and towns.

In 1994 the Vashon Town Plan Committee recommended that new businesses, new housing and civic functions such as parks, libraries, churches, even the post office remain or locate in a reinvigorated, walkable town center. Vashon has always been the Island’s center of exchange and commerce, and by centering activity there, the rural and more open character of much of the rest of the Island would be reinforced.

With intention and careful planning, it might be possible to have two centers. Several key elements, however, will need to be in place in order to have a happy relationship between the two while avoiding bumper to bumper auto traffic and creation of Vashon Island’s own Aurora Avenue suburban sprawl strip:

• Provision of frequent low-or zero-emissions shuttle service on the main highway between town and K2 Commons.

• Strict controls on auto-oriented commercial and retail activity between town and K2 Commons.

• New non-motorized connections between town and K2 Commons through bike, walking and horse trails.

Before saying, “Hah! That’ll never happen,” know that a few tools do exist to make these key elements possible — tools that local governments in King County draw upon in the permitting process.

The first is “transportation concurrency,” a provision of the Growth Management Act. What that means is that new development can only proceed if it does not degrade or put undue strain on the existing transportation system. If it does, then the developer must solve that problem or else the county won’t permit the development. Often the solution is a widened road or intersection. But the solution could also be provision of a new, eco-friendly shuttle service.

The second tool is a transportation management association (TMA). TMAs are widely used by employers to provide van, carpooling and other transportation options and services to employees. They are nonprofit organizations that can very efficiently provide tailored transportation services, taking that responsibility from the employer or developer. (TMAs operate in Redmond, Bellevue, Seattle and Portland and in cities and suburbs nationally.) Santa Barbara operates a pollution-free electric shuttle bus on its main commercial street that runs every 10 minutes and costs 25 cents.

Off-the-shelf technology and real world experience makes this a plausible, not futuristic, option.

— Dan Carlson teaches community and economic development at the University of Washington and is the author of books on adaptive use of buildings, transportation and land-use policy.